Royal Flush
by swamud3a
Summary: Set after the events of "Probation". Christian Mann Struggles with his new identity as a single man.  Prince Phillip Zu Hohenfelden is more than willing to help.  Pairing: Christian/Phillip, Slight BDSM
1. Chapter 1

Christian only ever calls him "prince" when he's pushing him down in the stable, and barking out commands. He likes the idea, of his highness brought so low, his cheeks hollowed out, lips slick and his eyes streaming tears because he has to struggle to fit Christian inside his mouth. Most times the Prince doesn't even manage to get his jodhpurs all the way down before he is reaching in with his too-soft hands and whispering, begging, "yeah, yeah, please- _please_." But Christian always makes him wait, even if it's been weeks, even if he's been crawling the walls of the flatshare going insane from the want, from the loneliness. The two are often indistinguishable and it becomes easier not to examine this when the Prince is on his knees looking up at him with his big wide hazel eyes, trying to catch his breath - trying to catch Christian's attention. It gets even easier when he grabs a nice fistful of brown hair tight in his grasp, because those little winces of pain the Prince gives him, the way he chokes on his cock, they give Christian something he hasn't had in too long. They make him feel. He doesn't know what the feeling is, maybe strength, or power - he hasn't had the will to examine it. But when he makes the Prince whimper the sound lights his nerves up, and sometimes, it's enough.

* * *

Nothing really worked for Christian, in those first few months after Olli had gone, really gone from Dusseldorf. He hated to admit it, but it was better, sort of, when Olli had been in town. He would catch glimpses of black hair and a flash of green, and it kept him grounded and focused in a way he didn't know he'd miss. Things were simple, completely clear. If Olli was somewhere, that meant Christian wasn't. It meant that he'd had direction and that direction was away, far away from Olli or anything that had to do with him. Unfortunately, it also meant staying away from his traitor brother, but Christian shouldn't have been surprised by Gregor's defense of his cheating ex. Whores, it seemed, looked out for one another, no matter what.

At the time it had also meant staying away from home, or rather, the flat, since he'd stopped considering it home from the moment he'd laid Rob out in the hallway. So he'd moved into Königsbrunn for a little bit. The staff quarters were tiny, but that was fine, he didn't have much or need much. The walls had been thin and he could hear the underbutler on the other side of the wall coughing, and snoring, or sometimes fucking Jessica first thing in the morning before breakfast service. It wasn't ideal, but it was a place to stay and a good excuse to stay away.

But after a few months, he returned to the flat, conceding after Luise had called and begged him to go back. Olli was gone, and the building needed a landlord. There was no real reason why he couldn't anymore. Except, sometimes, he woke up in the middle of the night, nauseated and sweating, his heart pounding painfully in his chest, barely making it to the bathroom in time to hang his head over the bowl and breathe through the dry heaves.

His dreams. They'd been full of blood, watching himself tear someone apart, hearing Olli's laughter and feeling dizzy and out of control, and the feeling didn't dissipate during the day. He'd go to make a cup of coffee and remember how Olli used to dance in front of the machine in the mornings - to make it work better he'd said. Christian didn't bother cleaning the deep brown stain by the front door where he'd flung the coffee machine in rage. It was easier to take to drinking tea and his appetite wasn't the greatest anymore anyway.

He threw himself into his work, double shifts at the stable, riding the mares and stallions until his hands chafed and his muscles ached, even helping Justus with the accounting to keep busy to keep that weird vertigo feeling of loss from taking over completely. The apartment, he only crawled back to when he was exhausted, when work had wrung everything out from his veins and he could just collapse on the couch into dreamless sleep.

The staff wasn't really surprised when Christian started hanging around on their weekly poker nights. He was welcome, by virtue of his being on the payroll, and he took advantage of it. The Koenigsbrun staff had a tradition that they adhered to closely, a bonding ritual leftover from probably Ludwig's time, if not even earlier. Frau Lentil would know, but on Fridays she and Justus had the day off, so she didn't participate anymore, if she ever did to begin with. It was a little difficult for Christian to imagine that, not to mention deeply disturbing. The game started out with Euros, but would always devolve into raucous strip poker and ungodly amounts of drinking. Christian would never play, just stand off to the side and observe, and the staff didn't try to force him, preferring a silent moody Christian to whatever might come out in the face of gambling and alcohol. Besides, they were too amused by Prince Phillip's good natured insistence on joining them to bother Christian too much.

Like any good ritual it was fairly predictable. Christian would flit around looking at everyone's hand, Phillip would be down to his underwear almost immediately, and Jessica was always generous with her trademark wide-mouthed smirk, sitting pretty with her ironically modest maid's uniform, and her smart-assed comments. She hadn't lost a hand yet, in the weeks since Christian had started watching and Phillip was obviously on an epic quest to see Jessica divested of her garments ever since the day he'd first stumbled onto this weekly game, when he'd wandered drunkenly into the kitchen to find half the staff semi naked and laughing in the half-light of Frau Lentil's kitchen. Not terribly regal of him to mix with the help, Christian thought. But there wasn't much about Phillip that was regal, and he could understand why Nico was into him. Phillip was kind of a contradiction, willowy, slim, but still masculine with generous lips and heavy-lidded hazel eyes.

It was unnerving and unexpected for him to feel that little frisson of interest whenever Phillip would tip his head back and laugh, or when he'd wink suggestively at Jessica. Christian had come to associate that with Olli, but in the weeks that he surveyed the game, it became increasingly apparent that he had a type, and Phillip fit the bill, which made Christian a little upset, because he was better than this, wasn't he? Better than being a mindless servant of his own need, like Olli. But that didn't stop him from hovering behind Phillip a little longer than he did everyone else and even, shockingly, silently helping him win a hand. Not that it mattered much against Jessica, Phillip always lost anyway.

"Guess Mr. Sunshine isn't much help," Jessica cooed to Phillip as she shrugged on her jacket and shoveled the money into her pockets at the end of one of their games.

"I guess not, Fake-a-rape," Christian growled as he made his way to the fridge.

"Not my fault your boy-toy cheated on you, Chrissie," Jessica fired back, her tone poisonously sweet. "If you need tips on how to keep a man around just let me know. Always happy to lend a hand."

His hand flexed and relaxed on the handle of the fridge, willing himself not to end her life right there in the kitchen.

"See you next week Phillip!" She called out brightly, breezing out of the kitchen door.

"You might want to loosen your grip there, don't want them to take that out of your salary," Phillip called out. "Only the best for the von Lahnstein's – that includes appliances."

Christian grabbed the dinner Frau Lentil had set aside for him. "Thanks, great advice. Please keep talking, nothing goes better with my dinner than a nice full serving of horse shit. It's not like I don't get enough of it at work."

Phillip tipped his head back and let out a gentle laugh, and Christian watched his adam's apple bounce, fighting the completely irrational urge to bite it. Phillip rose out of the chair slow and easy like vapor and floated over to Christian with the whiskey glass outstretched. "Christian Mann, yes? Nico's ex? I think it's time for a more formal introduction. I'm Phillip Zu Hohenfelden, and you, my friend, look like you need a drink. And, while you're at it, you can teach me how to beat Jessica at poker."

And, oh, wasn't there something achingly familiar about this, a handsome man who didn't understand or care about the concept of personal space, tempting him with all his most secret vices; alcohol, friendship, and a nice hot electric undercurrent of sex. There were things he wanted to do to Phillip, nameless rough things that would wipe the sass from his face and satisfy the strange hollow space he felt in his gut, day in and day out. The closer Phillip came to him, the harder it was to ignore that dark impulse.

Their fingers brushed as he took the offered glass, Phillip's fingers uncurling from the glass the way they might uncurl from his –

"Prost" Christian said quickly, knocking back the whiskey in one gulp and setting the glass down on the counter behind him. "And I haven't been Nico's ex in years. I'm someone else's ex now."


	2. Ante Up

They played hand after hand of poker in relative silence, punctuated by Phillip pouring more whiskey into his glass, or letting a wry throaty chuckle tumble out of his throat whenever he lost a hand. Before he'd known it, the bottle was two thirds gone and they were both sprawled sloppily across the chairs, loose-limbed and whiskey-warmed in the darkness of the early hours of the morning. Christian was a little drunk, but he was thankful. He wasn't alone at his flat and, if he had to deal with the evil little voice in the back of his head that wondered how Phillip's lips would look painted with ropes of his cum, and whether or not he would swallow it, it was a fair trade off.

"I'm really shit at this game, man." Phillip muttered, throwing down a piteous pair of threes and downing his shot straight from the bottle. Christian grunted noncommittally in response and held out his hand for the bottle. "I'm going to turn in," Phillip murmured, "but let's do this again next week? Jessica'll never know what hit her."

There was something delicate and hopeful in Phillip's gaze that almost had Christian squirming in his seat with anticipation. He was asking for something, his hand warm on Christian's shoulder lingering a little too long, his smile just this side of shy. So Christian took a drink, and agreed gruffly. "Sure, next week. Sounds good."

Phillip had not been exaggerating; he was terrible at poker. Christian could see through every bluff, read the excitement or fear when Phillip was about to place a bet, and the light-hearted disappointment whenever he lost - which was often.

"How can you be so good at this?" Phillip whined after losing his fifth hand in a row.

Christian looked at him evenly, took a sip of his whiskey, mentioned something about having ample opportunity to practice the skill when he was younger. Phillip didn't need to know that he'd basically been the reigning champion of his correctional facility, or that growing up as the little brother of Gregor Mann endowed you with a plethora of skills that wouldn't look so great on a resume.

"I think the problem," Phillip reflected, swirling the whiskey on his tongue and licking his lips in a way that sort of bothered Christian, "is that the stakes aren't high enough. What if, with every hand you win I have to hand over something really valuable, and vice versa?"

Phillip had a weird wanting light in his eyes again, and as intrigued as Christian was, he wasn't so drunk as to not be cautious. He'd learned to read physical cues as a boxer, and he could divine a lot of things, where an opponent would move, what they wanted to do to you, where they were aiming, and when they were scared. Phillip was smiling his distracted aloof royal smile, but he was barely breathing, scared out of his mind, and Christian had to quash down the hot little furl of interest the thought of that inspired deep in his gut.

"What do you mean, valuable?" Christian asked, staring Phillip down, daring him to lie, feeling like he sort of wanted it because then he'd have a reason to blow up at this prince who'd been nothing but unassuming, calm, and polite – unflappable and damn if Christian didn't want to see him a little more than nervous, off-kilter, shaken.

"Secrets." The prince said serenely, shuffling the cards and dealing them out. "We'll play for secrets."

It wasn't late, the whiskey bottle was more than half full and Christian could back out of this, should back out of this, because Phillip may have been debonair and polished but it was a veneer. Phillip, as usual, had played his hand too early and, like almost everyone Christian had known, he wanted to be the one Christian let inside, even though there was nothing left in there but something black and wrong, a burnt lump of tinder where his heart used to beat. But the fact remained – he was abysmal at poker.

"Secrets." Christian echoed, "Sure, hit me again dealer."

There had been many things Phillip had been forced to share that night, the night they'd bartered with secrets. He'd bet with a pair of aces and, shocked at Christian's straight flush, confessed that he wasn't sure if he loved Nico. This was something Christian understood; Nico was difficult at best and ice cold at worst, and they all knew it was because she was still so hung up over Andi. On a particularly spectacular hand of two pairs of nothing and a ten of clubs Phillip had blushingly admitted to experimenting with Tristan in boarding school. Despite the fact that Tristan disgusted him to no end, the idea of Phillip engaging in awkward schoolboy fumblings as a teen lit Christian up like a furnace, he was only a man after all.

At his truly tragic pair of eights, Phillip fessed up about Antonia, and how she'd liked to tie him to their bedpost for hours at a time, and sometimes whip him. The red creeping into his cheeks at that particular revelation, Christian knew, had nothing to do with the severely diminished whiskey on the table, and it made his dark heart beat faster.

Phillip only won one hand that night, and he made it easy on Christian by asking a question instead of waiting for him to volunteer information.

"So why'd you flip out so badly, Christian, over a kiss? Don't look at me like that, Helena told Nico and Nico told me. I know you're hurting but I don't know, you sort of blew things out of proportion, no?"

They hadn't bothered to turn on the rest of the kitchen lights, and Phillip couldn't see his face, nor could he see Phillip's. It reminded him of confessional when he was a kid, when Wolfgang had still cared about that sort of thing. The voice of the priest had always been curious, kind and comforting, and knowing. Like Christian's sins were an open book and Father was in the booth just waiting for a recital. Phillip's voice held that warm inevitable quality, and Christian found himself responding before he'd had time to think it out.

"Yes and no," he answered thoughtfully, looking at anything but the dark outline of Phillip's silhouette, the sense memory hitting too close to home. "I could never think straight around Olli or about anything that had to do with Olli. I don't even know how to explain it, it's like- he was-" Christian was quiet and still for a while, willing the words he couldn't say to come to him. Phillip shifted a little straighter in the seat, and Christian could tell he was invested.

"Everyone leaves me." Christian said quietly. "Every single person I've ever loved or let myself care about, leaves me eventually. And for a while I thought it would be different with Oliver. For a while it was different. But when he told me he kissed that bastard, I wanted to be the one to leave, to get away first. By the time I came to my senses, the whole thing was ruined beyond repair. Even if we could fix it now, he's gone. It's better that way. I'm better alone. Except when I'm not. Shit, this is just nonsense."

Phillip nodded silently, letting the half light fill the space between them, and the ticking clock lull them into monotonous silence.

The next week, Christian remembered exactly what it had been like to be in jail with hundreds of convicts because, evidently, Phillip was one of them.

" You've got to be kidding me, I mean, has this all been a ridiculous long – con?" Phillip's skills had improved a little too fast to be credited, drawing miracle card after miracle card. Christian, however, found himself habitually offended at the cards he drew, holding them away from himself like a smelly sock or a dirty diaper.

"Maybe I picked up a book from the library." Phillip replied smoothly, laying down trip aces with the flourish of an old casino dealer.

Christian would have ordinarily laughed at that, if it weren't for the fact that the stakes from last week stood and the Prince's questions had been benign thus far, and he knew it wasn't going to last because they were already two thirds through the bottle and halfway through the night, and Christian had already taken his boots off. They both knew neither of them was going anywhere.

"How did you end up with a guy anyway?" Phillip asked, unbuttoning his dress shirt and loosening his tie. "You really don't seem like the likely candidate." Phillip continued without, Christian noted, looking him in the eye.

"Took me by surprise too, trust me." Christian snorted. "But I always said you have to try everything once. And, oh, did I try. Olli and I tried almost every damn day - twice a day." He took a long pull on the bottle and passed it back to Phillip, ignoring the way his cock twitched at his memories of Olli, on his back, on his knees, inside of Christian. Surprise wasn't the word for how hard Christian had fallen. It had been devastation pure and simple, and watching Phillip's lips pucker around the opening of the bottle, his throat working to swallow the liquor, Christian could almost feel Olli again and the woozy dizziness he usually associated with him.

"That good, huh?" Phillip asked, his hazel eyes finally flickering back to Christian's, his voice roughened just a touch by something Christian could identify easily. There was curiosity, of course, but also a kind of defiant challenge and a heady purr of arousal that he knew he wasn't just imagining or projecting.

"The best I ever had." Christian's voice was even, but his pulse was throbbing and he could feel his cock starting to fill in anticipation. It had been months, and oh the spirit was weak but the flesh was more than willing.

Phillip moved slowly out of his seat sinking to the floor in front of Christian and placing a tentative hand on his knee. "So you never, I mean, with another man?" Phillip asked as his hand snaked its way up Christian's thigh reaching for his belt buckle.

"No, never." Christian's hips canted slightly at the sight of Phillip's tongue darting out to wet his lips. It would be so easy to just sit here and let this man please him, but Phillip's hands were shaking and he was breathing entirely too hard for someone who'd conspired for weeks to maneuver Christian into this moment. He stopped Phillip's hand from moving further up, pinning it to his thigh as they watched each other for half of forever.

"What do you want, Phillip?" But Christian found he already didn't care about the answer to the question as Phillip parted his thighs and slid in between them, undoing the catch of his belt buckle with the other hand.

"What do you need Christian?" He answered breathlessly, easing one hand into Christian's breeches to pull his cock out and lick a long wet stripe from root to tip. There was no answer on Christian's part, his head fell back and his hips started rolling in pleasure.

"It's been so long for you, hasn't it? Why ask questions? In the morning you can blame it on the drink."

Phillip swallowed Christian whole then, pushing his plump lower lip and tongue flush against the base of Christian's prick, his hot tongue darting out to swipe at Christian's balls. Those sounds, the little moans and sighs punctuated by the obscene wet sucking noises, were driving Christian a special sort of insane, and he couldn't push far enough into that enticing wet heat as he fisted the Prince's hair, sliding his cock along the Prince's accommodating tongue, further than was wise, pushing right into his throat. Phillip gagged, and Christian gasped at the sudden pressure around his dick. He pulled Phillip up and off intending to apologize, but Phillip gripped his thighs hard and, panting harshly, said, "No, do it again. I like it that way."

Christian couldn't control himself, couldn't keep himself from pushing past those pliant wet lips, sliding wetly in and out of the Prince's mouth as he keened struggling for every breath that Christian would allow. Christian closed his eyes and concentrated on the Prince's sounds, the way his hands shook on Christian's thighs, how nice and tight his throat was whenever he slammed into it roughly.

"You like it that way, hmm?" Christian asked, his breath hitching and his toes starting to curl. Phillip moaned louder around his sex in affirmation, and Christian could see the Prince's hand flying rapidly over his own dick, keeping pace with Christian's erratic thrusts. Phillip opened his eyes, and they were dazed, pupils wide and black, blissfully blank, a vortex of desire -Christian lost it. He was drunk, and it wasn't whiskey or fatigue that was making him so light headed, but power, pure and simple. Gripping the Prince's head like this, it was taking in hand the control that had eluded him all these months, the control that Olli had stripped him of completely.

The Prince was at his mercy willingly, and totally dependant on Christian, even for his oxygen, yet it was Christian who felt like he couldn't breathe, his whole body shuddering in the beginnings of a long overdue climax. It couldn't have been more than two minutes before he held the Prince's head down, shooting down his throat and whispering - God Christian didn't even know _what _he was whispering. Curses, promises of what he wanted to do, humiliating names for the Prince, a litany of dark lust poured from his mouth as he abused Phillip's mouth. When his orgasm crashed over him it robbed him of even those words, leaving him with tiny little 'ah, ah, ah,' sounds and the slight damp feel of the Prince's scalp against his fingertips when he finally pulled out.

He let Phillip rest his head on his thigh as he fisted himself to completion all over the shiny clean of Frau Lentil's parquet. There was an idle buzz of satisfaction, for just a minute, as Christian pushed his deflating cock in and out of the prince's mouth. But it was all ruined a minute later when Phillip rubbed his nose against Christian's thigh, leaving painfully sweet and thankful kisses on Christian's skin, saying "thank you," in an awful rasp that Christian knew he was the cause of. The worst of it was that Christian wanted to do it again, wanted to do worse, to see just how much the Prince could take.

The chair rattled back as he pushed Phillip off of his lap, hastily doing up his pants pointedly avoiding the sight of Phillip sprawled on the floor with his legs open, his hair wrecked from Christian's hands, his cock poking through his fly, still twitching and red. Christian didn't say anything, he couldn't even be bothered to put his boots back on, escape was his only priority, because if he stayed, if he gave Phillip what he'd been begging for with his eyes, he would truly lose everything.


	3. Fold

In the weeks that followed, Christian would have sworn that Königsbrunn had shrunk. It didn't matter that he avoided the kitchen, or that he hadn't shown up to poker in a while. Phillip seemed to have appointed himself to the position of Christian's shadow, swinging by the stable during Christian's shifts, and loitering by the castle entrance in the mornings and the evenings. He'd even caught the prince nonchalantly nosing around Justus' office when Christian would collect his check. It was brazen and infuriating and fascinating, but Christian couldn't let himself slip the way he had in the kitchen that night. He'd gone back to the flatshare unsettled and sickened and still a little hard with half formed ideas about what else Phillip would allow, what else Christian could get away with.

His breaking point came when Phillip slid into the table next to him one afternoon during what was supposed to be a quiet, uneventful lunch, and started to detail in excruciatingly exact whispers, the things he wanted Christian to do to him.

"You could tie me down," he said, his eyes fever hot and his body faintly vibrating with anticipation. "I'll do whatever you tell me to, _anything_ you can think of. Maybe use one of the saddles or," he leaned in to breathe the idea directly into Christian's ear, "use a riding crop." Christian's soup spoon clattered into his bowl at the thought of raising long red welts onto the Prince's skin. The idea was too appealing, so was Phillip's hand rhythmically squeezing his thigh.

"You're insane," Christian hissed. "I'm not even into that kind of stuff. What you do on your own time is your own business, don't drag me into it."

Phillip laughed softly and slung his arm across the back of Christian's chair. "I may have bad luck, but you're not a particularly gifted bluffer. You're into it. I don't know if you need it like I do, but you're into it, my friend.

"I'm not your friend." Christian answered coolly.

"No? Maybe you'd prefer 'sir' or even 'master'?" Phillip answered just as serenely, but his thumb was tracing slowly over the seam of Christian's fly and he was breathing harshly into Christian's ear.

Christian shoved his hand away harshly and stood up to put his bowl in the sink, ignoring the insolent little smirks Phillip kept sending his way. He was so smug, so entitled and so goddamned frustrating. The worst part, the thing that had Christian grinding his teeth, hands clenching in fists, was that Phillip had played him, hustled him right to this point without Christian being wise to it at all, and Christian couldn't stand it. He walked over to the Prince slowly and leaned in, looking him right in the eye, his voice pitched so that only they could hear. "I'm going to fuck that dumb smirk off of your face, _prince."_ Phillip's eyes widened almost comically, as if he didn't know, as if he couldn't tell that he'd baited Christian perfectly, as if that wasn't exactly the outcome he wanted.

"Justus," Christian called over his shoulder, not bothering to turn away from Phillip, not now that he was all in. " The Prince would like to arrange a private riding lesson. He'll let you know when he's available." With a soft patronizing pat on the Prince's shoulder, Christian turned and walked out of the kitchen, not bothering to spare Phillip a second glance.

The Prince is on his knees in the stable, nosing and kissing Christian's twitching balls, breathing in like his musk is oxygen, necessary and life giving. Christian can't help but gasp at the wanton slide of stubble and spit across his wrinkled skin as he laves them with his tongue, his hands gripping Christian's thighs just a little too tight. Sometimes, it's incentive enough to get Christian out of his flat, something to look forward to, a chance to get out of his own damned head for once, but sometimes it's too good. Like now, when the Prince's throat is convulsing around the head of his dick, it's too much and much too soon. He yanks hard on the silky brown hair, pulling a little too severely, while the Prince whines and gasps in his grip, his mouth hanging open red and wet, and his eyes dazed.

"You trying to make me cum?" The words are soft, as is his hand on the Prince's cheek, running his fingertips over the stubble and the puffed swell of his pink lips. The Prince looks down in shame, because they both know the answer is _yes_, yes he was trying to be the cause of Christian's pleasure, to force it from him. So Christian runs a soft hand over his jaw once before he rears back and leaves a hot red handprint on the Prince's cheek. Savoring the soft whimper of protest and the way the Prince's dick jerks and dances as it hangs lewdly out of his slacks, Christian leans in and whispers, "That's not how this works, _Prince._"

"I'm sorry sir," the Prince whispers deferentially, and Christian almost believes it, can almost taste the humility radiating from the Prince's bowed head, and he knows he wants to taste the fluid that is slowly leaking from the slit of his dick, so he orders him to stand up, and the Prince complies, the Prince _always_ complies giving in easily to Christian, giving Christian whatever he asks for.

Christian pushes him back against the stable door and pins him there, sliding his cock along the Prince's, holding him down, their breaths mingling as he pumped their erections together, pausing to bring his hand up and taste the slight bitterness of the Prince's pre-cum, his hips twitching as the Prince mewls his pleasure across the short space separating their mouths. Christian has to clamp his hands over his lips, because the Prince makes the wrong sounds, wrong pitch, wrong tone, wrong skin, wrong scent wrong person. Wrong. His mind is screaming this at him and he growls for the Prince to shut up and be quiet, working his hand faster in between them and ducking down to bite a little savagely at his throat and chest. But in the dim light of the stable, when the Prince is quiet underneath his hand, and his eyes are slivered so that only the green part of his muddled hazel irises show, something in Christian gets fooled and he snaps.

"Turn around. Strip." Christian growls roughly, and the Prince can't comply fast enough, shedding his clothing immodestly, just letting his clothes fall to the stable floor, shaking slightly as he waits for Christian to tell him what to do.

"Bend over." Christian commands darkly, but the Prince just doesn't do it fast enough for him, so he has to shove the Prince down, to get him at just the level he wants, and he holds him there by the back of his neck and nestles his cock right in between the Prince's cheeks and suppresses a shudder at the warm smoothness of his flesh. He's smooth, totally shaved, just like Christian told him to be. So Christian tightens his arms around the Prince's torso and drapes himself over his back nipping angry marks into his skin. When he feels the Prince start to respond and push back, grinding his ass onto Christian's dick, he slaps him hard, then rubs his hand over the heated red of the Prince's skin, like he's trying to rub the pain into his very molecules. The Prince makes a strained whimpering sound and something comes loose in Christian and he's raining blows all over the white skin of the Prince's ass, pushing himself insistently against the Prince's tight hot hole. They're both loud now, careless, the Prince encouraging him with breathy little yeses and Christian grunting at the feel of the Prince's trembling flesh around his dick every time he makes contact. It's hardly a punishment, since it's something they both like, and the Prince can take it harder than this, he knows. Sometimes he begs Christian for the riding crop, when he's particularly mouthy. But they're keeping it simple today, or as simple as this weird thing between them can be.

The Prince makes it through about ten hard slaps before he starts begging for Christian to put it inside of him, mumbling and panting and pleading to get filled, making promises he knows he can't keep, that he'll be quiet that he'll do everything Christian tells him to, to the letter. It's about the worst and best mistake the Prince can make, because the begging is good, the desperation and promises in his voice are a drug for Christian, but the method of delivery is lacking, his voice too high too smooth – he's still a polished Prince, and Christian is going to break him down.

"Suck." He pushes two fingers into the Prince's mouth, makes sure they get nice and wet before pulling them out to trace the sensitive line of the Prince's perineum and press into his hole, already flooded and sticky with Christian's pre-cum. His other hand is clamped tight over the prince's mouth already, because he knows what this does to him, how he can forget his place and demand Christian to go faster, push deeper. He's being quiet though, breathing through it like a fretful horse, and whining quietly. If he were a different person, Christian would find it sweet. If he were a different person, he wouldn't be in this stable at all. He'd be in Ibiza.

But this is who Christian is now, resting his head on the Prince's shoulder and pushing into his tight heat. He gives the Prince time to adjust, because it's just another source of suffering for them both, how slow Christian can go, how he can open the Prince up half inch by half inch until he is slack in Christian's arms, and weak with wanting. It never lasts for long though because the Prince is incorrigible; as soon as Christian has pushed all the way inside he starts squirming, pressing his ass back and writhing until Christian starts tugging on his balls and bites him again, in warning. Then he goes limp all over again and Christian knows he can start.

"Be good for me, Prince." He whispers. Before the Prince can answer, he slides out slow, stars going off behind his closed eyes at the way Phillip's ass drags along his cock, clenching tight enough to wring hard-won moans from Christian's mouth. Christian slams back in and there will be no more soft words for Phillip, just the hard insistence of Christian's cock, the harsh curses in his ears, the strained rasp of Christian's breathing.

They want it this way, Christian needs someone to use, and Phillip's hot cock in his hand, the sweat he spreads around on their skin, it's his now, all his. The red flush creeping over his skin is Christian's, the high pitched whine and the jerking twitching cock in his hand, that belongs to him too. Watching Phillip's cum arc through the air, and feeling it spill on his hand, hot and wet, is a sense of control that Christian can't get anywhere else and with three short sharp thrusts he is joining Phillip over the edge, burying his nose in the nape of his neck and cumming hard letting himself pretend for a moment that Phillip is someone else, that he is somewhere else. When he takes a lick of Phillip's skin the illusion is shattered, and he pulls out quickly, pushing Phillip away from him and running the back of his hand along his mouth in disgust.

It hasn't worked this time. The lack is still there, somehow worse than before and he doesn't want to think of the things he'd have to do to Phillip to drive it away, even for just a little bit. So he knows it's time to be responsible. It's time to end it.

"Phillip," He calls out, watching the man flinch at this unexpected use of his given name. Christian never calls him Phillip here, even if less than a minute ago he'd been buried to the hilt inside of him, groaning his way through orgasm. Phillip looks at him with a question in his eyes, and Christian answers.

"I can't do this with you anymore. It's not right, nothing about this is right, and I'm scaring myself a little."

The disappointment is plain in Phillip's eyes, and Christian feels for him, he does, but that was part of the risk, part of the deal, and he's right about Christian. He's not a gifted bluffer but he's unfailingly honest.

"Hey Christian, lighten up, it's just sex, man, we're just, you know?" Phillip is bluffing now, it's obvious; the thin veneer of bravado is giving away to the neediness underneath. As usual he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

"No, it's not. It's getting out of hand, I think." Christian sighed, running a tired hand through his hair. "It's probably better if I'm alone, really alone for a while. This – it's too weird and I already have a monopoly as it is on weird fucked up shit with men." He slips his jacket on, walking towards the entrance, and damn if Phillip isn't still pleading with him silently.

Christian forces a smile, working muscles in his face he hasn't had cause to use in months. "Um. It's not you it's me. Really." The truth of it hits Christian hard. It is him, letting the hurt fester and get dark, making him lash out against people who don't deserve it. It's up to Christian to turn it around, to really move on because in some ways he's still in that hallway, full of rage and covered in blood and betrayal. It's time to let it go.

Phillip gives him a wan smile, and Christian doesn't pull away when he leans in to give him a kiss for the first and last time.

"Good luck, Christian." Phillip says as Christian walks out of the stable.

Christian doesn't turn back, just waves over his shoulder and keeps walking into the dusk. He's going to take the long way home, and he's going to make his own luck.


End file.
